"In 1799, a French officer was clearing debris from a military installation when he discovered a stele bearing three scripts: ancient Greek, hieroglyphic, and a third that could not be definitively identified. This artifact, which came to be known as the Rosetta Stone, has traditionally played the starring role in the history of decipherment, which has until now been understood as an instance of code-breaking, a kind of Bletchley Park avant la lettre. In The Riddle of the Rosetta, Buchwald and Josefowicz delve into a wide array of British and French sources as well as archival material to produce a comprehensive new history of the decipherment. More than a puzzle-solving exercise based on a single artifact, the decipherment engaged with the era's social, cultural and intellectual contexts. It grew in the midst of heated disputes about language, historical evidence, the status of the Bible, the nature of polytheism, and the importance of classical learning. Jean-François Champollion in France and his British rival, the medical doctor and polymath Thomas Young, approached the decipherment from different standpoints derived from their contrasting temperaments, educational experiences, and attitudes to antiquity. Imbued with reverence for Greek culture and raised a Quaker, Young disdained Egyptian culture and saw Egyptian writing principally as a way to uncover new knowledge about Greco-Roman antiquity. To him, the decipherment was akin to a challenge posed by a problem in mathematics or science. Champollion's altogether different motivations and attitude unfolded amidst the political chaos of Restoration France, in fierce response to the intrigues of opposing scholars aligned with throne and altar. Unlike Young, Champollion admired ancient Egypt, and this sympathy, coupled with his willingness to upend conventional wisdom about the enigmatic Egyptian signs, freed him to travel a path down which Young refused to go. A remarkable intellectual adventure reaching from the filthy back streets of Georgian London to the hushed lecture rooms of the Institut de France, from the forgotten byways of provincial France to the splendor of the Valley of the Kings, this book reveals the decipherment in its full historical complexity"--.

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• PART 1. A QUAKER’S ODYSSEY
  • Chapter 1. Dinner at Longman’s
  • Chapter 2. In the Classroom of Nature
  • Chapter 3. An Errand in the City
  • Chapter 4. The Vocal Circle
  • Chapter 5. Lecturer and Physician
  • Chapter 6. The Herculaneum Papyri
• PART 2. ANTIQUITY EMBRACED
  • Chapter 7. Words from Egypt’s Past?
  • Chapter 8. The Sounds of an Ancient Language
  • Chapter 9. Paris Atmospheres
  • Chapter 10. Rooted in Place
  • Chapter 11. Hier pour Demain
  • Chapter 12. L’Affaire Polycarpe
  • Chapter 13. An Egyptian Geography of Egypt
  • Chapter 14. Indications
• PART 3. SCRIPTS AND BONES
  • Chapter 15. Summer at Worthing
  • Chapter 16. Letters from Paris
  • Chapter 17. The Papyri of the Description de l’Égypte
  • Chapter 18. Seeking Uxellodunum
  • Chapter 19. The Master of Conditions
  • Chapter 20. Abandoning the Alphabet at Grenoble
  • Chapter 21. Demonstrations
  • Chapter 22. Iconoclasm at the Académie des Inscriptionset Belles-Lettres
• PART 4. READING THE PAST
  • Chapter 23. The Obelisk from Philae
  • Chapter 24. A Singular and Puzzling Artifact
  • Chapter 25. A Momentous Change
  • Chapter 26. Words and Sounds
  • Chapter 27. Parisian Reactions
  • Chapter 28. Words across the Channel
• PART 5. ANTIQUE LETTERS
  • Chapter 29. Grey’s Box
  • Chapter 30. An Opportune Encounter
  • Chapter 31. The “True Key” to Egyptian Hieroglyphs
  • Chapter 32. The Semantic Trap Avoided
  • Chapter 33. The Reception of the Précis
  • Chapter 34. “Hold your laughter, friends!"
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index